Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Cutting education, cutting jobs, destroying the future

The following charts from the Center for Budget and Policy
Priorities tell a disturbing story of lost jobs and lost opportunity. Facing reduced revenues due to the anemic
economy and the loss of federal funds due to Republican Party strategy to destroy the U.S. economy by demanding spending cuts, states
and local governments have been forced to drastically cut spending, particularly spending on
education. Every economist will tell you
that education is key to the country's economic future.
Every time we lay off a teacher or cut back on per pupil expenditures we
destroy another piece of the only engine we have to drive growth in the
future.

These charts tell the story. Each year for the last three years state and
local governments have cut jobs. These
cuts have offset any job gains in the private sector and are a major reason the
unemployment rate stays above 9%. A
substantial percentage of the public job cuts and the majority of the cuts in
2010-2011 were in education.

When we cut spending on education, we destroy the
future. It’s that simple and that sad. These cuts are a direct consequence of Republican demands for spending cuts in the name of deficit reduction. In reality, as every political observer knows and many have said, the Republican Party has systematically pursued policies designed to keep unemployment high and the economy from recovering, operating on the theory that Democrats and Obama will be blamed and Republicans will benefit in the 2012 election. The charts below show more of the damage the Republicans are doing to our future.